The story
The heat along the banks of Honda never let up, not even at three in the morning. Inside the old wooden house, built just a few yards from the mighty Magdalena River, the air seeped in thick, heavy with humidity, dust, and the drone of jejenes, tiny biting sandflies. Camila and her two younger sisters shared a room with a polished concrete floor, tossing and turning on their cots, unable to fall asleep. Outside, the river's murky waters slithered through the gloom like a living snake, murmuring sluggishly against the bluff.
It was in the middle of that suffocating lethargy that the torment began. At first, it was a faint moan, barely audible over the steady churn of the current, but it soon swelled into a gut-wrenching wail that made the hair on the three girls' arms stand up. They were frantic screams begging for help. They rose from the thick overgrowth in the yard, as if several people were trapped in terrible agony. What made it so disturbing was the sound of it: they didn't sound like ordinary physical pain, but like a violent suffocation, the ragged wheezing of throats choking on dry land, consumed by the relentless, stifling heat hanging over the Tolima night.
In the dim light, the sisters stared at each other, wide-eyed, holding their breath. Their father's warnings immediately echoed in Camila's memory. Weeks earlier, sitting out on the porch while taking a sip of bitter tinto, a strong black coffee, the old man had spoken to them with stern country gravity. He told them that damned witches haunted that riverbank—souls suffering unspeakable torment, choking in the region's oppressive heat, doomed to wander in agony and cry out for help whenever the heavy weather became unbearable.
Clinging to their sweat-soaked sheets, the girls tried to take refuge in logic to calm the terror seizing their chests.
"It's just the wind whistling through the caracolĂes," one of the little girls whispered, her voice cracking with tears, referring to the giant wild cashew trees.
"No, it's definitely the engine brake of a freight truck on the highway," Camila quickly replied, desperate to believe her own lie.
Still, none of the three could convince themselves. The valley wind didn't shape human pleas, and heavy trucks didn't rumble with the cadence of someone running out of air just steps from the front door.
Driven by a curiosity laced with dread, Camila slowly dragged herself to the crack in the wooden window shutter. With her heart hammering against her ribs, she peered out toward the path leading down to the river. The moon cast a pale yellowish glow over the foliage and the stones along the bank, but there was nothing there. No hunched silhouette, no writhing body, no physical trace of whatever was producing such agonizing cries.
The absence of any figures brought no relief, only a thicker horror. The voices stayed right there, drifting invisible through the blackness: muffled pleas, dying gasps hovering just inches above the roof, never once revealing their shape. The sisters spent the rest of the night huddled together in silence on the cot, knowing for certain that there are sorrows the river cannot wash away, and presences that need nothing more than the dark to make themselves heard.
